Doug King's £10m-£15m reality check for Coventry City fans as Red Arrows put on hold
Doug King has reminded Coventry City fans that the club, like most Championship outfits, continues to run as a loss making business, revealing that most clubs in the division lose £10-£15m a year. The Sky Blues owner insists that he is striving to reach a zero loss making position, which he admits is a ‘massive challenge’.
The executive chairman was responding to a question from a supporter during an interview on BBC CWR’s morning show who felt the club are ‘missing a trick’ by not having the flame bursts and fireworks that some clubs have as part of the pre-match build-up, and even asked whether it would be possible for the club to get The Enemy to play a short set following the huge success with the band’s now adopted pre-match anthem ‘We’ll Live And Die In These Towns’.
“I have been to most of the stadiums now and you’re right, some of them are really good, Molineux was so loud, it was crazy,” said King, speaking to CWR presenter Phil Upton.
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“All these things add to the excitement and to the experience. I think we’re huge with our pre-match anyway with our anthem, we have the flags around the fringes now. You can do what you want, you can have firework displays, the Red Arrows coming over if you want but it all costs quite a chunk of money.
“And the issue is, people shouldn’t forget that running a Championship club is a significant loss making exercise. Let’s just say that so it’s out there. It isn’t like I am sitting on piles of dollars and making it all for the club and deciding to trouser it. Effectively it’s a loss making business so we have to look at everything very carefully.”
Asked if he is still subsidising the football club, he replied: “Yes, of course. Absolutely. The operating losses...” King was then interrupted and it was put to him that ‘there will be a point in your business plan where it won’t be tenable, won’t there?’
King answered: “Well it depends. Obviously my whole goal, ultimately, is to make the operating component of the business as close as I can towards zero. That’s going to be a massive, massive challenge, especially when we don’t have any support from the Premier League through the new package, and that’s why the regulator needs to get involved. Let’s not go there!”
He added: “What’s in our control is in our control and we’re working to increase revenues, and from the increased revenues then support as strong a team as we can get, with losses operating that are not going to cause me to have too many sleepless nights. “Effectively that’s the goal, and alongside that we can buy ourselves some players and hopefully get that right at the right moments.
“But if you look at the stats on Championship clubs, most are losing £10-£15million quid a year. That’s how it works, so putting fireworks in etc is lovely, but everything is just more losses. I want to make it fantastic because I want the stadium full and that’s why we have frozen the tickets.”